Inside Soaps' Producer Season Articles (2013)

[Ben]

After weeks of mind-numbing technical problems with my printer/scanner's WiFi connection (and a vexing, easy solution!), I can now present the articles from Inside Soaps' Producer Season.

I'm pretty sure the complete interviews haven't popped up anywhere, just certain spoilers, and I figure some may be interested in reading the full interviews.

Emmerdale

Coronation Street

Neighbours

The rest will follow when they become available.

[DRW50]

I'm so uncomfortable by all the talk of the Neighbours producer basically doing ethnic cleansing that I couldn't even read that interview. I did see the part about Chris - sounds like none of his stories will be about romance. Shocker.

Some people actually believed Blackburn was going to steal Cain from Emmerdale and were on DS venting their outrage. The hysteria some people have about that man greatly amuses me.

Emmerdale must play better than it reads in that article.

Thanks. You're so important to this board.

[Bright Eyes]

After Marlon and Laurel, that man should never be forgiven. Nothing can erase the stench of that pairing. I do, however, believe the Cameron story, once Carl found out, has been near perfection. And that they didn't go single white female with Vanessa should be applauded.

Kind of an off-topic question, but does Shortland Street air in England at all?

[DRW50]

These are the same people who would have sold their children for Phil Collinson, who destroyed anything that was left of Corrie. Their outrage starting up immediately after he leaves, ignoring his many flaws and acting like Corrie suddenly dropped because he was gone, is a good example of why I rarely watch UK soaps now. It's become a cult of celebrity.

Shortland Street has brief UK runs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortland_Street#International_Broadcasting

[Ben]

Human nature never fails to disappoint. The apparent ethnic cleansing is quite ironic, considering Richard Jasek is descended from Hungarian (I think) immigrants.

Rani has just come back at Oz pace to tie up the Kapoors lose ends. It seems like they brought her back after the backlash to film these scenes. It doesn't make sense for them to have pre-recorded them, as Ajay would've been with her to sort out the adult side of things. I guess they didn't want to bring Sachin Joeb back after his honest interview.

Well, Chris has had more intimate moments with Hudson, than he ever did with Aidan last year. So, the improvements are very slowly happening (kissing, hand holding, caressing each other's thighs, general couple-y nature in public). The problem is that Chris' love interests are all guests, and to really be committed to a same-sex couple, both have to be regular characters.

You're right about the celebrity culture thing. People got bent out of shape over SB taking over Corrie, but in reality, criticism has been few and far between. It seems the Hayley story is blinding people to what is bubbling under the surface. He already recycling old stories from ED with this stupid euthanasia story for Hayley and Roy, and then there's the ridiculous affair between Peter and Tina! He reminds me of US head writers: destroy one show, get a job on another, and begin destroying that.

I've recently started watching ED again (not regularly), and it has drastically improved. More watchable, more farm life, more humour, better character relationships.

Thanks for the compliment, Carl.

Not just for the abomination of Maurel, but also for turning Ashley into an elderly abuser, and Carl into an attempted rapist. Oh, and "it's what Jackson would have wanted!" I'm sure there are plenty more.

Shortland Street doesn't air in the UK at all. It used to many years ago, and then it was resurrected a couple of years ago on Sky Living, but ratings weren't great (or not what they wanted), and it was gone again. Networks don't have time to wait for soaps to build up an audience these days.

[Ben]

Hollyoaks

[DRW50]

Thank you again.